This week I’m in the Sierras in California …

It’s beautiful here – the setting, the spiritual retreat that I’m part of, the mountains, the people. But there’s no escaping what’s going on in the outside world.
The other day on a long drive in a rental car, I did something I seldom do: tuned into to AM talk radio. I heard a man named Michael Savage pontificate in ridiculous and threatening ways, using rhetoric that reminded me so much of George Wallace in my childhood …

Then this morning I saw those same words from Wallace referenced in a piece on Gaza by my Jewish friend Mark Braverman, available here. He quotes Israeli historian Ilan Pappe’s message to the family of the 1000 civilian victim in Gaza:

“I feel the urge today to make a pledge to you, which none of the Germans my father knew during the time of the Nazi regime was willing to make to him when the thugs committed genocide against his family. This is not much of a pledge at your moment of grief, but it is the best I can offer and saying nothing is not an option. And doing nothing is even less than an option.”

The whole article is worth reading, including the links, especially this very disturbing one, where this question is asked: “What other way then is there to deal with an enemy of this nature other than obliterate them completely?” The article was pulled down, but like the rhetoric of George Wallace and Michael Savage, it indicates something desperate brewing beneath the surface. Another reason you should read Mark Braverman’s piece and encourage others to do so.
PS. I later received this email from a South African friend, widow of a white leader who stood in the struggle against apartheid. Again, the links are worth following:

Joshua Bloomberg and his friends make me think back many years to when Beyers Naude – and my children – stood up against the injustice of their time…. as we should do against all injustice where-ever it may be.
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